Question Upgrading my Gaming PC - Apr 2019 - AMD FX-8350

[kbakerde]

I used to keep up with the latest news and products in PC gaming and hardware. But currently, I find the branding and performance differences extremely confusing. I have built a couple iterations of a Gaming PC that has doubled as a home PC for simple web browsing, word processing and even some minor audio editing for some bands I played in (just taking a live mic recording and chopping up audio, nothing exciting).

Currently I'm looking ahead, Borderlands is my favorite non-Nintendo gaming series. With Borderlands 3 coming out, I have been re-playing the older games. I'm currently playing the enhanced Borderlands edition in 1080P as I don't have a 4K television. Everything is running fine so far. My son is a fan of the new Doom games, and while he would like the game on Switch, getting the game on PC is certainly a possibility. So my concern in upgrading would be getting a system that is capable of running these games, but also be competent in the next few years.

Current Specs:
AMD FX-8350 4.0 Ghz CPU
MSI 970 AM3+ Motherboard
16GB DDR3 Ram
Geforce GTX 1060 Mini 6GB DDR5
Seagate 1TB 6.0Gb/Sec SATA HDD

A couple notes: Due to some quirks of my house setup my gaming PC is in my office, I stream games from it to my 1080P HDTV via Steamlink (5G Wifi at the PC, Wired at the TV). I don't need, or foresee getting 4K anytime soon. Due to the streaming, my fidelity does take a slight hit normally. That said, if I upgraded I'd still want to run games smoothly the next 3 years or so.

Thanks everyone for their help.

 

[jeremyj_83]

What would your budget for this build be? What country do you live in?

 

[kbakerde]

What would your budget for this build be? What country do you live in?

For Budget, I'd say moderate, $300-$500 depending on what all I need to change out. I am on the East Coast of the US. I usually buy from Newegg.

 

[jeremyj_83]

For now your GPU is good so that doesn't need to change and you can keep your current case. For that reason I would do something like this.
PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 2600X 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor ($179.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Gigabyte - B450M DS3H Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard ($66.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: GeIL - EVO POTENZA 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory ($69.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Intel - 660p Series 1 TB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive ($109.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: SeaSonic - FOCUS Plus Gold 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($84.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $511.95
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-05-03 12:23 EDT-0400

I included the PSU since having a yours is probably 5+ years old by now and this is a high quality unit with a 7 year warranty and is big enough to add larger GPUs in the future. If you don't need it you can either pocket the savings or go to a Ryzen 2700.

 

[kbakerde]

For now your GPU is good so that doesn't need to change and you can keep your current case. For that reason I would do something like this.
PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 2600X 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor ($179.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Gigabyte - B450M DS3H Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard ($66.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: GeIL - EVO POTENZA 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory ($69.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Intel - 660p Series 1 TB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive ($109.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: SeaSonic - FOCUS Plus Gold 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($84.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $511.95
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-05-03 12:23 EDT-0400

I included the PSU since having a yours is probably 5+ years old by now and this is a high quality unit with a 7 year warranty and is big enough to add larger GPUs in the future. If you don't need it you can either pocket the savings or go to a Ryzen 2700.

Yeah, I think my current PSU is a Corsair 450. Not problems with though. For the SSD, is it just that the SATA HDD speed is a limiting factor? What about a dual drive solution, smaller SSD for games and the larger HDD for everything else?

Thanks for your input. I appreciate it.

 

[jeremyj_83]

Yeah, I think my current PSU is a Corsair 450. Not problems with though. For the SSD, is it just that the SATA HDD speed is a limiting factor? What about a dual drive solution, smaller SSD for games and the larger HDD for everything else?

Thanks for your input. I appreciate it.

Going with a dual drive is always an option. Use a standard 256GB SATA SSD as your boot/application drive and the 1TB M.2 for your games. The Intel 660p is a QLC NVMe SSD and it costs the same as the SATA WD Blue. Anything that is cheaper than the WD Blue are all DRAMless drives which don't have the performance consistency. Going with a SSD for gaming will reduce loading times and give more consistent performance. With the PS5 and most likely the new XBox having SSD storage, you will find that developers will be better able to make use of the faster storage.